To think - yes, universities should take state school applicants with lower grades

[Lemiserableoldgimmer]

.. than applicants from private and grammar schools, on the basis that this new research suggests that as a group, state school pupils appear to be more able than private school applicants with identical A level and GCSE grades. More likely to get a good degree, less likely to drop out.

here

What do you think?

Nope only one of mine.

Can't wait for the other two to go to the local comp.They'll be in the top sets for everything and will get everything thrown at them in order to get the much lauded AAB and uni places.

Your state primary is obviously different to ours.The kids are setted for literacy and numeracy with the top groups having separate sessions.The bottom also go off.It's not unusual as I had a similar set up in many schools I taught in.

lesmis you seem to be saying that because the state system is failing high ability children, that universities should be the place to resolve that.

This is frankly, the best way to reduce standards at university, and won't help the most disadvantaged at all.

These DC need a good standard of education prior to 18. And constantly insisting that tertiary establishments reduce their standards, won't go any way to pushing that!

This is frankly, the best way to reduce standards at university, and won't help the most disadvantaged at all

This is simply not necessarily the case, I have worked at RG and (much) lower ranked universities and if managed properly, taking people with lower grades does not lower standards.

Yes, you might need to put more time and effort into them in the first year, but that doesn't have to be done in lectures/seminars. There are different ways to support people, and if you have a decent student support centre, they can learn to learn there.

In the area I teach, about half of my first years will have studied the subject at A level, and the other half have not. By the end of the first year, there is no difference between the students.

So obviously I am used to mixed ability in the first year, but there is absolutely no reason why this could not be done in other subjects around grade differences.

I think if you indiscrimineatley reduce entry standards, you will end up with many students who are not remotely disadvanataged, but are simply of medicore ability and/or lazy.

You will also end up being somewhere that the real high achievers generally avoid.

University is a collegiate experience and you need a good concentration of high ability students to properly challenge one another.

I teach in a place where the standards are mixed and you simply don't get the academic rigour that you get at more selective universities. IMVHO the high ability students are woefully under served.

So creamteas this mixed ability set-up works perfectly at uni, but destroys the hopes and abilities at secondary?

It doesn't work perfectly at university carol IMVHO.

What it does, it drive standards down to ensure that all can cope.

It discourages the brightest students and discourages the best profs too.

The lectures and seminars I give at the less selective university and Oxbridge are not even in the same ball park.

you simply don't get the academic rigour that you get at more selective universities

That is not my experience at all. It might be different for different disciplines, but the standard of discussion, insight and writing I got from the best students at a BCC entry grade university was pretty much the same as when I taught at an AAA institution.

creamteas I simpl don't recognise that.

For a start, the students at the less selective university do a hell of a lot less reading. A hell of a lot less written work. A hell of a lot less preparation for tutorials (of which they have precious few).

Yes, at the end, the less selective uni hands out a commensurate number of firsts and upper seconds, but frankly, it's a joke!

'but the standard of discussion, insight and writing I got from the best students at a BCC entry grade university was pretty much the same as when I taught at an AAA institution.'

This hasn't been my experience, though due to practical reasons (mature entry/location / commitments etc), universities with lower entry requirements will have students with higher potential or achievement than those requirements.

For a start, the students at the less selective university do a hell of a lot less reading. A hell of a lot less written work. A hell of a lot less preparation for tutorials

That is not my experience at all. I have worked at 3 universities,and at each one:

The number of tutorials has always been exactly the same (one hour per week for each module).
The reading requirement for modules has been more of less the same.
Some students don't do the reading, but the numbers have been about the same.
The lowest ranked university actually had a higher requirement for writing.

We have semi grammar schools that are 25% selective, 25% distance, 10% selective, 40% siblings. So if you got in on distance should you have to have the distance grades or the grammar school ? What about the siblings? It doesn't really work does it?

Also it may be that private school kids are more likely to drop out because their contacts and wealth give them lots of other interesting options. It may not be because they can't cope intellectually.

DD has been offered :Leicester Chemistry and Forensic Science with 3Bs ,usually the course requires ABB . DD is predicted 3Bs ( if everything goes right ! an A in Chemistry) from her Secondary in Kent! . It has been said, that the University took the school in to consideration when offering the course with 3 Bs.

Meant to say DD1.

DD is at state school, does DofE treks, works in a supermarket and has fingers clicked at her to attract her attention by people who think state school pupils don't do DofE treks and spend all their spare time working in supermarkets.

The universities want the students who will do best with their courses. Clearly A-level results are a good predictor of this. Equally clearly there are other relevant factors to consider.

This is surely obvious, and to concede this is not to say that every state schoolchild should be put in one box and every private schoolchild in another; nor is it to say that universities should admit students who are unable to cope with the course; nor is it to say that we should set hard targets for how many private schoolchildren are offered etc etc etc.

It would be great if one could buy entry to a Russell Group Uni by chucking money at the problem, but we aren't quite there yet, thank God - I can understand how this irks some of those with the money, but the Admissions Tutors have the interests of their Universities at heart, not the convenience of well-off parents. If an Admissions Tutor is not attempting to take all relevant factors into account, they are not doing their job properly.

Many of the sons and daughters of the monied will get through anyway. I remember my time in Cambridge. There was a well-known syndrome of the student who had been helped over the qualifications line by excellent schooling, who then breathed a sigh of relief and coasted gently to a gentleman's/ladies third or low 2:2. Bit like a knackered old racehorse who had finally got around the last lap. Lovely people, great company. I couldn't help wondering whether someone else could have made better use of their space, but that wasn't their fault of course.

Historically it was the monied students who paid for all the busaries etc. Still does in the US - if a rich student pays £30k a year and therfore provides 2 full busaries for poorer but more academic students, is this a problem?

It shouldn't make any difference. They're all measured by the same yardstick. What should perhaps make a bigger contributing factor to whether someone gets a place or not is the work experience and extra effort they've put into non-curricular stuff. That would be a better measure of their mettle and may correspond better to whether they would stay the course or not.

"What should perhaps make a bigger contributing factor to whether someone gets a place or not is the work experience and extra effort they've put into non-curricular stuff. That would be a better measure of their mettle and may correspond better to whether they would stay the course or not."

Trouble is, most work experience and extra curricular stuff involves money and/ or parental involvement.

I disagree. I went to a state comprehensive where I excelled academically. Great A level results. Ime it's the average students who perhaps don't get the push they need at state schools, but I don't think that lowering university entry requirements compensates for that - surely it perpetuates it?

Cambridge rejected me - my interview there was one of the most belittling, patronising experiences of my life. Example comment, 'Imagine a derelict house; you must see lots of those where you are from.' ???!

I went to a RG university instead where I had a great four years and had the opportunity to go abroad for a year as part of my studies.

Years later I came to the conclusion that I wasn't what the college or course at Cambridge wanted for whatever reason (not a public school product or perhaps just too middle class to fill their particular state school quota) and that it was their loss.

The problem is that some of us are talking about groups and some about individuals. Of course not all disadvantaged children will do worse and not all privileged children will do better. But for the vast majority that's how it is. And it is for the "vast majority" that the measures have to be put in place.

hak I think it's far too great a generalisation, to say that state educated applicants are disadvanataged.

I mean, what are we saying about our state system if that's correct?

That it's substandard. That we need to moderate entry requirements across the board to reflect how poor it is?

No. We need to deal with contextualised offers on a case by case basis, with establishments being regualarly assessed as to how this is panning out.

Sorry- I thought we had agreed that the state/private thing wouldn't work- it must have been just in my head! I'm thinking about advantage for pupil premium kids.

But what about the kids just over pupil premium or those in the middle?

Also when you consider pp numbers (which are tiny anyway) the maj when you consider the percentages of all kids in Russell group unis won't want to go or even be suitable even if all had help to get in.

You can't just hand out places to make the gov look good and say we've tackled inequality and social mobility.Err no you haven't you've just taken a tiny number of places away from others equally deserving and those from the top private schools will continue to be over represented.

I think the applicants who have attracted PP are already receiving contextualised offers.

I've done that rarest of things and gone away to have a think about this.

I have no solution but some random points/questions:

• I like the idea of blind/anonymised applications, with no reference to name, school etc. but this is perhaps a reflection of the poor quality of UK state education in relation to private and international provision;
• I think part of our problem stems from Kenneth Baker removing normal referencing (i.e. 'Bell Curve') from the marking system of GCSE and A levels - this enabled grade inflation and removes the ability of institutions to differentiate between high-achievers (all those A* grades!);
• I compared our system with those of China, South Korea and Singapore because they produce highly-qualified and ambitious graduates, which I admire;
• Why not remove State involvement in the university sector altogether? (i.e. allowing them to select on whatever basis they want) Some will go for high grades, others for lower ones (i.e. larger pool of people);

- My objection to the suggestion that state school pupils be accepted with lower grades is partly selfish, I admit. I went to state schools all my life and would have been one of those to 'benefit' from this idea - I got 1 A, 2 Bs and a D (back when those grades meant more than they do now - 1991). I ended up working alongside colleagues who went to Eton, Winchester, Rugby etc., most of whose grades were same or worse than mine.